L-R: Images by Anastasia Lavrinovich, Ri Butov & Yari Marcano (All images CC0/Pixabay)

Classical music is the perfect soundtrack to the holiday season, whether it’s Christmas or Hanukkah that fuels the celebration. During the month of December, Handel’s Messiah is never far from view, but digging a little deeper into the repertoire yields many other gems that celebrate both holidays.

Corelli: Christmas Concerto

Arcangelo Corelli was a prominent violinist and composer of the Italian Baroque, and his music was performed throughout Europe. Although his orchestral output was small in terms of the number of pieces he’s left to posterity, he is credited with innovating the Concerto Grosso form. His Concerto grosso in G minor, Op. 6, No. 8, aka the Christmas Concerto, was commissioned by Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni. It was published after Corelli’s death in 1714, and bears the inscription, “Fatto per la notte di Natale”, or made for Christmas night.

David Ludwig: The Hanukkah Cantata

American composer David Ludwig’s choral work The New Colossus was performed at Barack Obama’s 2013 inauguration. His Hanukkah Cantata was written in 2007 with the help of Cantor and Rabbi Dan Sklar. Musically, he juxtaposes modernist elements with traditional melodies and prayers of the holiday. After about 20 years on the faculty of composition at The Curtis Institute of Music, he was appointed Dean and Director of Music at the Juilliard School in 2021. Sung in traditional Hebrew and English, The Hanukkah Cantata is a piece for choir with soloists, percussion, organ and strings, and was commissioned by Choral Arts Philadelphia.

Berlioz: L’Enfance du Christ

Hector Berlioz’ L’enfance du Christ (The Childhood of Christ), Opus 25 is an oratorio that takes up the story of the Holy Family and their flight into Egypt. It’s based on the Gospel of Matthew. Berlioz himself was not said to be a religious man — he simply loved the beauty of sacred music. Unlike the generally hostile reaction to most of his compositions during his lifetime, the piece was deemed an immediate success. Berlioz, however, vehemently denied any softening of his style. In his memoirs, he wrote, “In that work many people imagined they could detect a radical change in my style and manner. This opinion is entirely without foundation. The subject naturally lent itself to a gentle and simple style of music, and for that reason alone was more in accordance with their taste and intelligence. Time would probably have developed these qualities, but I should have written L’enfance du Christ in the same manner twenty years ago.”

Kurt Weill: The Eternal Road

While Weill is a well known figure in the music world, his The Eternal Road was lost to public view for many years. It was the show that essentially brought him to the United States in 1935 with his ex-wife Lotte Lenya, who starred in the Broadway production in 1937. (As an aside, her role led to their reunion and remarriage.) In his native Germany, the show, with its themes of legendary Jewish heroism, religious and cultural persecution, was impossible to produce under the rising Nazi regime. Brecht himself, a left-leaning Jew, was a double target of Hitler’s government. Selections from the Torah are interspersed through the show. Unfortunately for Brecht, while critics loved the show, it tanked with audiences, and became a financial flop.

Schoenberg; Christmas Music (Weihnachstmusik)

Arnold Schoenberg was Jewish, but he loved Christmas music so much that he wrote a piece for the holidays. The piece revolves around a setting of the poem by Michael Praetorius “Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen” or A Rose has Bloomed (although it’s often translated as A Spotless Rose). He composed it in 1921 for harmonium, string quartet and piano, although it’s often performed by a chamber orchestra. Those who are frightened away by his twelve-tone dissonance can set aside their preconceptions. The piece is contrapuntal in style, and it’s believed it was written for private use by family and friends rather than public performance. Schoenberg develops the theme, as well as the classic carol Silent Night, using polyphony, cycling from C major to F major and back again.

Handel: Judas Maccabaeus

After his Christmas masterpiece, the Messiah, Handel went on to compose music for Hanukkah. His oratorio Judas Maccabaeus was composed in 1746. It is thought that Handel, a Christian, was inspired to compare the fate of the so-called Maccabees, or the Jews who struggled against the Seleucid Empire in Judea in about 165 BCE, with that of and the British victory against the Scottish Jacobite rebels at the infamous Battle of Culloden which also took place in 1746. He emphasizes the themes of rousing heroism, although notably, he ignores the miracle of the oil, which kept the Maccabees miraculously supplied for the 8 days of the Festival of Lights.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Christmas Overture

Coleridge-Taylor’s Christmas Overture was only published after his death in 1925, in fact 13 years after he passed away at the age of just 37. Scholars believe that he composed it for a children’s play titled The Forest of Wild Thyme. Coleridge-Taylor references existing Christmas carols and melodies, including God rest you merry, gentlemen, and Hark the herald angels sing. Born in London to a West African father and English mother, Coleridge-Taylor was a virtuoso violinist, and much celebrated in his time. Dubbed the “African Mahler”, He achieved his greatest success during three tours of the United States in the early 20th century.

Flory Jagoda: Ocho Candelikas (Eight Little Candles)

Guitarist, composer and singer-songwriter Flory Jagoda was born into a Sephardic Jewish family in Sarajevo, Bosnia in 1926. Her compositions often reinterpret traditional Sephardic songs and music, much of it in Ladino or Judeo-Espanyol. She and her family escaped the Nazi invation in 1941, and ended up in Italy, then the US after marrying an American soldier. Jagoda continued to write and teach well into her 90s, and passed away in 2021 at the age of 97. Her Hanukkah piece Eight Little Candles has been widely performed.

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Anya Wassenberg

Anya Wassenberg is a Toronto City Editor at Ludwig Van. She is an experienced freelance writer, blogger and writing instructor.